Broken Childhoods
by Kare Uta
Summary: Bryan and Tala try to tell their adoptive father about their abusive childhoods. Tala safely manages to bring himself to talk about it but Bryan finds things a little more difficult due to past promises that he'd made with his friend. Oneshot.


_**Broken Childhoods**_

"Tala…" The older man began carefully from the sofa. The redhead tried to recall the face that belonged to that voice; it was the psychologist, though lately he'd come to know him more as his new father. Since the Abbey days, this man and his wife had took him and Bryan in almost a year ago. The parental figures in his life now couldn't be more perfect.

Bryan was sitting not too far from the man; on a separate sofa in the office, leaning forward in the seat and his leg shaking so badly Tala was almost sure he could hear it. There was physical distance between them but never emotional or mental distance.

"You said you were ready to talk about this now…" He didn't need to be reminded about that; it had been on his mind ever since he said he'd try to talk about it. The reason for Bryan's own nervousness was that for Tala to talk, Bryan would have to do some of his own and he wasn't really prepared for that.

"The snow buries everything. It always has." The redhead allowed himself to begin his musing out loud, "The dirty earth from below was hidden and buried. The snow was cold and it chilled the whole body. But it was impartial. Without differentiating between the rich and the poor, the happy and unhappy, it continued to fall. The boys who knew of poverty and unhappiness, who came to escape from a horrible living, couldn't have disliked this snow. They knew more than anybody that the snow could bury away the most unpleasant of memories."

While the psychologist would've most likely interrupted him at this point, he knew that this was going to play quite the role in the teenager's life story, otherwise Tala wouldn't waste his breath in saying it all, and so chose not to interrupt the onset of thoughts.

"Happy memories weren't something that I didn't know." Tala added, still staring out the window interestingly at the pure white snow that still fell as angelically as it did in his memories, "A father who was a proud soldier, and a mother who was kind, cheerful and a great cook. Deep down my memories were of a warm household and inside there, was me who was laughing. But that's such a faint memory." He knelt down on the windowsill, his knee digging hard into a pillow and his hot forehead connecting with the frozen glass that had become painfully cold and causing a heavy shudder to rush down his spine.

Silence fell upon the room again; their new father figure tried to keep as silent as possible to be able to listen and let Tala deal with it in his own time. Bryan watched the ground as the moments passed slowly; he remembered the first time he heard Tala's story and it was no better than his own.

When the silence lingered for just a bit too long for anyone's liking, the older man chose to prod a little more to get the redhead to continue with the story of his childhood, "What happened? What changed?"

"The country's system changed and my father had lost the occupation of a soldier in the country. What he lost wasn't just that though; both his pride and ambition were gone too. What remained for him were the glory from the past, and reminiscence of the better days. The man who used to be a proud soldier, a wonderful husband and father immediately drowned himself in alcohol. He would hit and beat up both my mother and I, we were weak in comparison, without a reason, and he simply became a man who lay around in self pity." His form hit the wall and he slid down to sit on the windowsill as his whole body began to grow weaker and weaker, the icy feeling from his surroundings not helping him remain standing in the slightest. "It changed my mother, a woman who would always be smiling. She would look extremely saddened and held a shadow of fear inside her eyes every single time his mood shifted. About half a year later she even resigned being a mother. She left by herself; abandoning both me and father."

The whole appointment hadn't been set up as an analysis on Tala's reaction to all his memories of his abusive childhood, thus there was no reason for anyone to interrupt him to ask him questions, or to look at things deeper than what they could already see because the boy's emotions were touching the surface. In comparison to usual, the trembling of the lithe body and the occasional hint of bitterness or sadness in the insecure voice was more than enough.

Bryan looked at him and watched him with uncertainty as he tried to read lips. He was sure that his part of the explanation would be coming soon and he was too frightened to be able to pay much attention to what his friend was saying. Still, he watched his life long friend's face with the intention of catching the emotions that briefly ran across those features. He was limited on things he could do for the other boy but he remained alert for those feelings so that he could instantly run up to him if he _ever_ needed anything at all.

"After my mother's disappearance my father's violence became even worse. Even so, I stayed by my father's side. I thought that some day my mother would come back to us. Father would eventually become the proud and kind man he used to be. I held those hopes within my heart and all I got in the end were even more disappointments. That's why I stayed by father's side, the person who would abuse me while demanding me to bring food and alcohol." He was starting to tear up and despite how quickly they slid from his closed eyes and down his pale cheeks, Bryan chose not to make a move just yet. This was the emotional Tala; there were times he was much worse so he could handle this so far, of what Bryan could tell. "To live a better life for both of us I had to steal. During that time, Bryan and I had met. Bryan came from a similar environment. That's why we met on the streets, and from one look we had a mutual understanding."

Suddenly the attention of both people was on Bryan. The reason they were there in the first place was because Tala was having more difficulty adjusting than he was so so much attention didn't need to be on the younger boy. Still, he couldn't say that he wasn't expecting to be told that he needed to talk too. Tala had some happiness in his childhood; Bryan had none and because of that the younger had insisted so much time be spent on helping Tala as a kid that he never allowed himself the chance to deal with his own trauma. Right now he just wanted to lock up all the memories and even the emotions that they stirred up inside of him. While wishing all this, the two looks from his friend and the older man grew stronger as the tiny seconds past him.

He took a good look at both; they weren't bossy glares, they were just gentle encouragement for him to talk about what happened to him. He was frightened of what could happen if he said anything at all though, hence why he couldn't submit to what they wanted.

The man glanced at the redhead whose prime focus was on his friend and on nothing else, "Tala?"

The redhead glanced at the man, seeing that look in his eyes and he shook his head hurriedly in reply, "No…I don't have the right to say anything for him."

The two silently exchanged looks, clarifying that they should move on from the subject. In the meantime Bryan continued to sit there quietly; utterly confused. He couldn't find his voice. At all. He couldn't open his mouth and bring himself to say anything. At the time, he was stuck. No matter how hard he tried, nothing was possible for the moment. No sound would pass his lips even if he wanted it to, no action could be made even if he tried to control it.

"What got the two of you in the Abbey then?"

"Bryan and I had to steal to survive and we did that together for a while. We got into a lot of trouble and Boris brought us out of it; he promised us meals, warm place to stay and a great distance from the abuse."

Still the older man's concentration was on Bryan. He knew the boy was stressed out and upset but keeping an eye on him he hoped that the boy wouldn't stress out too much and right into a panic attack. Tala noticed the sudden separation between everyone in the room. He was focused on telling what needed to be told. The man was on the alert for anything going wrong with Bryan and the youngest had locked himself into his own little world of confusion.

"Maybe we should try this again some other time…" Tala began quietly, shying closer to his friend and putting a hand on his shoulder.

"Maybe we should." The man agreed as he stood up.

Bryan stood up, his hands sinking deep into the pockets of his jacket and made his way through the door to go back upstairs to his bedroom. Tala was following close behind but just as he was about to leave a hand grabbed his forearm lightly. He turned back and looked into the soft Russian features of the older man, he smiled tenderly and it quickly warmed up that cold empty space in his heart that the memories had just caused him. "You did well." He wasn't quite sure what he meant by all that but he was happy that he'd heard it. It sort of meant that his hard work of bringing up those memories hadn't gone entirely unnoticed.

The old blonde gave the redhead a light half hug as he led him out the door and into the hallway and watching him leave up the stairs after his silent friend. The psychologist left the door open and dragged himself over to his desk to sit down in his more comfortable chair. Across the piece of dark wooden furniture were two files, both open to display the contents. They were the files he'd received upon bringing the two boys into his life and even after weighing up all the side affects the experiments had had on the two, he couldn't say that they were bad kids. They just felt alone and misunderstood and who could really blame them for that? The abuse clearly wasn't limited to what they had in the Abbey and under Boris' care, though no one knew what had happened to them before that time.

These were kids that he had come to care about like his own kids; knowing what happened to them in the Abbey was a lot and it was painful for him to even think of them in that situation but he had managed, and at some point he had to separate personal feelings from his professional ones. Professionally, he was there to listen to them when they needed it, though at the same time that was also the job of a father.

There was a timid knock on the office door and he wiped his eyes to bring himself back to the present. Looking up, Bryan was standing inside the room and leaning back against the wall as though he'd been drained of all his strength. "Bryan…"

"Can we talk?" The firm voice asked, slowly losing that strength that his voice always held.

"Of course." He got up and walked over to the boy, the closer to him he got he was able to confirm his suspicions that the boy was trembling occasionally.

"I don't like talking about this."

"You don't have to if you don't want to." He reminded him softly. He placed his hand on the back of the sofa, "Why don't you come to sit down?" He was almost positive the boy was going to fall over if he kept leaning against the wall and trembling like that. The younger shook his head though, he was really determined to keep himself standing, even under all the pressure.

"I didn't want to say my side of the story in front of Tala before…" He informed quietly, watching the man lean against the back of the sofa to watch and listen to him, "I think…it was because he handled his own so well that I was scared…what if I couldn't be as strong as him?"

The blonde sighed and reprimanded gently, "It's not a competition, Bryan."

Bryan shook his head, and insisted, "No, I know that. Looking back on it, Tala and I had made a promise that we'd look forward and won't let our pasts put us down…I just didn't want it to look like I was going back on that promise." He drew in along deep breath to help sustain him for the next of his speech that would surely take a lot out of him. "Tala had some happy memories…maybe that's why I think he deserved more time in being helped then I did; I should've been used to the abuse by a certain age."

"Abuse isn't something you should get used to." He cut in; not being able to help the sudden tinge of anger he felt. Anger, anger against all those that had hurt the two. The uncontrollable fatherly instincts kicking in faster than he'd expect them to.

"I didn't have a good family. They started out happy…I saw baby pictures and they were really happy. I hit four and those memories faded and I couldn't even remember the happy memories because there were such a few."

"Understandably; the mind rarely keeps memories prior to three years."

"That's when things got bad…at about four. They argued all the time; I lived with a negligent mother and an abusive father. One ignored me, the other raped and beat me." He began to speak lightheartedly; almost trying to make a joke out of his situation so as to make it lighter on his heart.

Though the older man wasn't deaf to the sounds of masked hurt and moved closer to the boy, sitting down on the armrest of the armchair that was right beside Bryan's form.

"He would share me around with his friends, many didn't have sons of their own whom they could take their sick little fantasies out on. The worst part is that my mother knew what was going on, she just never said or did anything about it. It was like she didn't even care about what happened to me. I guess that's what hurts the most…"

Bryan glanced at his adoptive father to see if he was finally satisfied after all his encouragement for so long only to find that the man had tears shining in his eyes. The man stared into the blader's eyes silently as he tried to wrap his head around why exactly it was that Bryan's story had affected him so much. He'd dealt with many child molestation cases and yet… this one had seemingly affected him so personally. Perhaps it was because he could actually _feel_ Bryan's suffering so strongly because of the one year they'd spent getting to know each other a bit better. Suddenly he stood up, leant forward and gently pulled Bryan closer by his jacket, holding him close against his body as if he were trying to protect him from something.

Neither said anything and just stood there, the man carefully embracing him while Bryan kept his arms crossed due to insecurity. The man pulled away slightly and as Bryan moved to turn his head so he wouldn't see the tears, he caught it gently in his hands and pulled the boy's attention back to him. "Look at me Bryan," he waited till the boy's teary-eyes cast back to his own, "You don't ever let anyone put you down because of what you've been through. You survived because you're strong. Look at yourself now, you didn't break as badly as you thought you would."

Bryan shook his head, pulling it out of the other's hold, "I'm failing."

The man smiled carefully and pushed him down onto the armchair, "That's okay." He whispered in his ear.

The words drove him right into the pit of painful emotions, bringing each of them to the surface. He sniffled and let the first few tears trace down his cheeks openly. He pulled his legs up onto the seat briefly, hugging them close to him and putting his head in the safe space till he could pull his emotions back together. There was the sound of the occasional sob but other than that the man could say he was stopping the rush of emotions as quickly as possible. He never spoke about his childhood. He always kept that part of his life secret; safe. If he wasn't talking about it then he was thinking about it and if he wasn't thinking about it then he wasn't affected by it. He could hide it away, forgetting all the horrible memories and unfortunate set of circumstances that had led him to this pitiful state of existence.

He raised his head after a few more minutes, brushing his sleeves harshly against his eyes to get the dampness out of them. "I'm fine." He tried to convince himself.

"Are you?"

Bryan bit hard onto his lip and nodded, wiping at his red eyes again to make sure that there were no traces of his emotions left on his face. An arm carefully wrapped itself around his shoulders, again in a protective manner as it brought him a little closer to the body of heat.

"Can I ask just one question about all of this? Something about the Abbey."

Bryan smirked and pulled away from the hold again; something about having people touching him still bothered him. "That depends; do you need an answer straight away?"

"No." The man laughed softly.

"Then what is it?"

The man understood that the boy didn't want him touching him again, and thus saw no reason to stay so close. He walked over to his desk and began closing the files and tossing them into his open drawer. "A lot of the kids in the Abbey claimed you were the most ruthless, you were always angry and it was the only emotion you channeled." He looked back at him and watched that emotionless face again, "They said that the scientists got you to block out all other emotions. For some reason, I have my doubts about that."

"Where's the question?" Bryan asked.

"Is it true that the scientists made you that way? Or was it just something of your own doing?"

"A bit of both." Bryan replied, a hint of uncertainty in his voice. "They wanted me to get rid of all the emotions except anger, they thought that that's what made me strongest but I couldn't let someone just get rid of everything. Then they realized that they needed my co-operation for it to really work. They tried to convince me that if I only felt anger then it'd block out all the pain of my childhood."

"And?"

"And it's safe to say that, stupidly enough, I believed them."

The man nodded; at least now he had a better understanding of the way things were. Although, he was still a bit confused in some areas, furrowing his eyebrows and shifting his bodyweight as he leant back against the desk, "And what changed after that? You certainly weren't that way when you came here…"

The smile grew slightly on Bryan's face as he stood up, "I realized that I can't spend my whole life being angry at people who did me no harm…and who deserve to be treated better than that."

"But…"

"You said one question." Bryan stopped him with that smirk growing, causing his new father to laugh and nod in agreement as it had been what he'd said. He headed for the door and glanced sideways, the last thing he wanted was eye contact but still the impression that he had to say something else. He hesitated with it for just a moment before whispering, "Thanks for listening." And rushing off down the hall and back up the stairs.

"Thanks for telling me." The man mumbled back even though the boy had long gone.

He turned to the files that he'd tossed in the drawer and slid them out of it and into the bin by the desk. The files were to be burned later on. They were given to him upon the arrival of the boy's because they were supposed to help him in understanding the characters of the two boys. Surely, these files wouldn't help him in the slightest in the future because these boys weren't what the files said they were. They were in a league of their own and nothing that could be written down on some pages. If he ever needed answers, they were certainly not in those files.

_**A/N: Something new and something that…I don't know seems different from my usual kind of work. Well I still think this was some of my better work. This was inspired by a chapter of the Beyblade manga. Tala's childhood was at least. Originally, Tala's story was going to be the side story of Chapter 12 but for many reasons it never became part of it. Instead, Takao Aoki had drawn a few sketches of what had been planned and he went to someone to novelize Tala's story using the points he'd given him for Tala's background. Later on, Takao-san published the work on his website and to this day there are English translations of it on the net. Plenty of Tala's narration here is from that, only at times I needed to soften it up a bit because it was really stiff, like a literal translation and such so it needed to do with some editing to make it sound just a little more natural without removing that brooding feeling. **_

_**As for Bryan's past. In Tala's past, he clearly says that Bryan came from a similar background. Then in the original Japanese anime there are hints of him suffering sexual abuse and neglect as a child and fans questioned Takao about this at one of the conferences. Naturally, the American dubbers removed the obvious signs but they can still be found in the Japanese version of season 1 and season 3. **_

_**Really and truly, to get a authentic pasts for this oneshot I needed to do a bit of a cross between the anime and manga, although clearly, the Blitzkrieg Boys pasts in the manga matches up quite well to the anime so I thought it'd be alright. **_

_**So, sorry for the long authors note but I thought it'd be good if I explained where I got my information from. Please leave me a review! Take care everyone! **_


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